Hume’s Philosophy and Its Relevenance in Today’s Morally Challenged World

Athough Scotland is known for its beautiful countryside, its
ingenious scientists, and for one of the best fiction writers of all
time (Arthur Conan Doyle), it is also the birthplace of David Hume, an
interesting modern philosopher who challenged many of the mainstream
ideas of his time. This post would be too long, however, if we were to
describe all of his contribution to philosophical thought, which is why
we recommend you check out this great web page by Stanford University
(http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume-moral), as well as this one
(http://www.iep.utm.edu/hume) by another reliable website on this topic.

Hume’s most applicable ideas in today’s world have to do with
morality, since it’s something that doesn’t attract enough attention,
especially in the technology ecosystem. We, as humanity, may be smart
enough to figure out how to make somewhat intelligent systems (A.I.)
that were thought to be science fiction a few years ago, but are we
smart enough when it comes to moral matters that these systems bring
about? The continuous debates on the future and safety concerns of A.I.
are but a symptom of this phenomenon. Just like a bizarre body-builder
who has worked hard to developed only his right limbs and is as a result
unable to do anything really useful with his body, we may be leaving an
important type of intelligence underdeveloped, relatively speaking. I
am referring to the intelligence that has to do with making moral
judgments and moral choices (this goes beyond the tradition
8-types-of-intelligence paradigm). As Hume clearly stated, morality
doesn’t stem from reason, something we observe nowadays more than ever.
We see truly remarkable scientists and ingenious engineers enter the
limelight, due to their work on A.I. systems, yet we rarely see many
people with high moral stature enter the stage in the tech world.

Hume was wise to separate philosophy from religion and focus on the
facts, rather than questionable testimonials that often accompany
religious conviction. However, as time went by and we became more and
more technically-oriented, we unwillingly separated philosophy from
science, something that doesn’t seem to make much sense, since science
stemmed from philosophy to start with. Also, many world-class
scientists, even in the modern times, are talking about things that are
more akin to philosophy than anything